XLII

Darkness Ascending

Tatsuya did not need to be worried about Sesshomaru. The promise of pain that flared crimson in the gold Inu eyes was not to be fulfilled, because despite all that had passed between them so far, despite the change in her own nature and the necessities that had come of it – despite the red blood he had watched Kagome drink down from raw, fresh kills made with her own hands...

He was leery of exposing her to the darkest, most intense depths of his own demonic power. He was afraid to show her the face that loved pain, the part of himself that gloried in the agony of a victim, in the bittersweet complexity of fear in all its tones and tastes.

Sesshomaru was not certain she was aware of those parts of him; surely she had not forgotten the years they had spent antagonizing each other, standing on opposite sides of the red line of battle...surely she had not forgotten...

And so he made his decision.

I will not show her – I will not give her a chance to turn away again. Someday – when she has recognized that part of her own nature – someday -

He was faced with a challenge as he made that decision, because Tatsuya would not give up the truth willingly. Pain could take the truth from him; the scents of the Dragon's body beside blood and agony would tell Sesshomaru when that truth had been found. But...if he was not to be the one to make that agony; if he was not to be the one...

His eyes roamed aimlessly, darting between the floor and Kagome, her robe, her face, her hands; the man and the woman beside him, the girl who walked with one hand on his bloody hakama.

The man and the woman beside him.

If Miroku had not just proved his own usefulness a thousandfold – if Miroku had not currently been in the process of proving that usefulness just by the fact that Tatsuya was bound and still living before them, when that bloody shape of shadow had been vanquished...if not for those things, the thought that darted across Sesshomaru's mind would never have taken hold.

But it did.

The woman.

Taijiya, the woman, a slayer of youkai, a hard woman...a harsh woman. The few memories he possessed with her in them imparted that knowledge to him, the pitiless way she confronted youkai, the easy with which she dispatched many beings that should be able to feed on her young, strong soul.

And she is devoted to Kagome – the ultimate loyalty. As Kagome is devoted her -

And she owes me a debt, this woman. She owes me her life, which would not be hers if not for my power – but no. Perhaps it is Kagome she owes for that, even if my hands worked the magic.

"Taijiya, Sango, I have a request of you."

His voice rumbled in the confined space of the little room, and the woman turned to meet his gaze along with all the others, each of them equally surprised that Sesshomaru had chosen Sango for...what?

"What is that request, Sesshomaru-sama? I owe you a debt; I will repay it, if I can."

He was pleased at her acknowledgment.

"This filth has information I require; the knowledge of the future that comes from being a party to desperate plans -"

Sango surprised him then by knowing exactly what he desired.

"So you want the truth; you want the whole truth. And you want me to take it from him...I can do that, Sesshomaru-sama, gladly. I can do that in ways that would surprise and disturb you."

She smiled, and Sesshomaru found himself already disturbed; it was a calm smile, an everyday smile; it had not even a dark edge, but her words -

"There are weapons that inflict pain and terrible damage on youkai, strikes that hinder regeneration and pressure points that can turn the flow of youki into a burning knot of agony. There are poisons...terrible poisons..."

Sango turned to look at Tatsuya as she spoke, and her fingers toyed with one of the secret pockets in her sleeve. Sesshomaru saw that Tatsuya's disturbance was far greater than his own when she turned that smile on him; when she continued to smile it even as her words grew darker with blood.

"I know where the veins ride close beneath the surface, and how to let the blood from your body so that the loss is like a truth serum; I have drugs that can strip the will from your soul; I know the questions to ask that will leave you without recourse but to answer; I can flay you to the bone and strip the tendons from beneath your flesh one at a time if pain and blood is the only way to make you talk."

She leaned down close to Tatsuya's face, and sneered at him.

"That is the least of what I will do to you, just for causing Kagome pain. Then I will begin on the questions."

Sesshomaru turned at the sound of the door opening, but he only nodded once at Miroku, who had begun to usher Rin and Shippou out into the hallway, away from the bloody mess that was soon to follow. Sesshomaru was halfway out the door following Rin before he turned back to hold out his hand for Kagome – but she waved him away, and the expression on her face was one he would remember forever.

It sent simultaneous surges through him, hot and cold; pure and ultimate desire and a complex of confusions.

"I'm going to stay here with Sango, Sesshomaru. I can help her, I have before; youkai don't like my power, you know that -"

And she, too, smiled; but it was a smile different from the woman's by the shadows it contained, the feelers of darkness rising up and outward.

When she was human she had detested this work; she had not liked to cause pain, had not liked to take life. She was still Kagome; she still maintained the essential power of redemption, the ability of a twisted soul to reform itself; she still believed in the lights of the world conquering the darknesses – even as the darkness within her own soul rose up to reclaim her, to reshape her flesh according to its own nature. But she was no longer unwilling to flesh out a point with pain and had not yet recognized this about herself; just as she had been forced to learn the redness of flesh to feed herself, she needed now to learn the redness of pain...

Sesshomaru almost stayed, wondering what it would be like for her; wondering if she would run toward this new part of herself, embracing it as she had everything else...or if she would turn from it finally, and make an uneasy, dangerous peace with the Inu and its urges. She had never yet looked away from the truth, once she knew it – he had proof of this for himself, had owned that knowledge since the moment he had told her she was youkai and watched belief and then acceptance...and then desire spread across her face. But...

He nodded to her, accepting her words, her potential, and then turned away, shooing the children down the hall in front of him. They ran their own way, eager to play, to forget now that they were safe. Sesshomaru's eye followed the fox kit; the child might forget, but he would remember. Strong he was, for one so young...and worthy of the Sesshomaru's House, to which chance had bound him.

Worthy of Kagome.

Kagome.

Mate, you do not yet know what it is that grows within you...but I so very badly want to see what happens when you do.

The moment when she accepted the darkness; when she let it swallow her. The moment she would take on the flesh of the Inu for the first time...

You will be so lovely, Kagome.

Behind him, Miroku sat outside the door of the room that had become Tatsuya's torture chamber. A barrier of power expanded outward from where he sat, meditating, praying – sealing the doorways between the world of Shadows that had threatened them once already and this world.

The screams began then, high and sharp and piercing.

Sesshomaru wondered how the woman had begun, but he did not turn back. He had his own work to do; there were deeper implications in this abduction than just the open facts of the encounter. They had taken Rin, but Rin had not been their target – only inasmuch as they had been able to reach him through her. They had come prepared with poison that had not been seen in an age; strong enough to overwhelm his own immunity, his own dokkasou; dark poison, whose use had been forbidden...

His own life would have been worth nothing in the face of it, if not for Kagome...and Rin. If not for the sword that his father had left him...

He comforted himself in the knowledge that having tasted it once, having been submitted to the burn of it in his veins, he knew that they particular venom would never touch him again. By the same token, Tenseiga could restore a life only once; there would be no second chances at this world.

Sesshomaru was possessed by anger, by regrets that he could not place except against Tatsuya...but he recognized now a deeper wisdom in his choice to allow the woman to do her work.

I would not be able to hold back. Not against this one. Questions are needed, but all I want of him is death!

He sat at his desk, and took his brush in hand, and began to ink out the first of many summons; to Kinawai, who he knew would come...and who had best come quickly, before Sesshomaru decided to take action himself, without consulting anyone.

The words flowed easily, and behind each one was rage.

Kinawai -

In your position as head of Council, you are required. Here. Now.

Do not delay.

I will not restrain myself for the sake of a score of fools.

Too much is at stake.

He did not sign his missive but sealed it in blood, the irrevocable proof of where it had come from. An invisible hand took the paper from him, and instructions on how it was to be delivered.

Then he sat quiet and still, listening to Tatsuya's screams as they echoed through the stone corridors of the fortress, scenting the flowering of Kagome's power and the sick sweetness of Dragon blood. The messenger knew his haste; if Kinawai knew what was good for him, he would leave as soon as the message arrived and reach Sesshomaru between nightfall and moonrise.

"And by then...I will know what I need to know; by then, Tatsuya will have spilled everything of value that he knows..."

Sango did not wait. When the door closed behind Sesshomaru and Miroku, and she felt the flickering barrier of holy power rise over them, a familiar presence, a consolation that she had worked beneath many times, she reached into one of the hidden pockets that decorated her worn leather armor and pulled out a little skin that gurgled faintly in her palm as she cradled it.

Onto one of the blades that she kept secreted at her wrist she sluiced a thin layer of whatever it was that was in the skin; to Kagome's nose it was strongly scented of herbs that seemed familiar, but she had never seen such a preparation in Kaede's pharmacopeia. Sango spoke in a low voice, conversationally, her eyes on the Dragon who would soon suffer her skills.

Kagome only watched, waiting until she was needed.

"Well, Dragon, now that we are alone, shall we begin? Tell me the name of the one who sent you; the one who leads this stand against Sesshomaru?"

Tatsuya said nothing; his eyes were on Kagome, not Sango, and so he was not prepared for the swift slice of her blade against his flesh when he did not speak. The first scream was surprise and not pain or panic; it was the second scream, a moment after the first, that told of the agony Sango had only begun to inflict.

The slash was across his cheek, just below his eye; the second was on the other side of his face, mirroring the first. It was not the cuts that hurt him, but whatever she had smeared across her blade; it burned into his skin, bored up toward his eyes, scrabbled at the thousand nerves of his face. He wondered if it was poison, a revenge for what had happened to Sesshomaru – or maybe acid, to burn away his flesh -

He reminded himself that he could, he would regenerate, but the thought was only a promise of endless pain – and then the burning began to dull, and fade away.

Sango was watching him closely; she knew what to look to for; she saw the moment when the pain had begun to fade, the snide expression crawling across his lips – and then panic, when he tried to blink and could not. When he tried to look away from her face and found his gaze stuck, unmoving.

"You will have realized now that the muscles near those wounds are paralyzed; the nerves too, now that the pain is fading. You can't move your eyes, your forehead; you can't blink – soon your eyes will begin to burn. The dose you have received from my blade is enough for only a temporary effect at the moment, but there is a point beyond which even the most powerful youkai can't recover. Already, it's enough that another cut near the eyes will blind you."

She leaned close to his face, met his unmoving stare.

"Do you believe me, Dragon? Will you answer my questions?"

She gave him three beats of silence, and then slash his face again, cutting through the mocking glare of his left pupil.

His scream this time was of a higher, purer pain. A red sheet of darkness poured from his broken eye – and across his face, the burning crept and tingled, numbness that woke a shadow of gray around what he could see through his right eye, whole but not untouched.

It took only a moment for gray twilight to become black darkness. His breathing sped in terror. Agony – that was only the half of it. Nothing in his experience, nothing he had ever been told had served warning that the taijiya could do something like this to him. That a human could do something so terrible, could stand without fear before a demon and pry secrets out with pain. The truth confronted him in the next moment: he was Tatsuya, son of Ryuukotsusei, and he was a coward, and he was dead.

He felt the woman's breath on his ear. When had she moved?

"Will you still not tell me, Dragon?"

Sango paced in a circle around her blinded prisoner, wiped the blood from her blade and slicked it once again with the powerful persuasive. One at a time, she began to decorate his flesh with little cuts, wounds that burned and then lost sensation, stole his movement, his control, his power – but they were not all the same, not all infected with the same poison.

Some bore a pain that lingered like acid. Some burned like a fire in his flesh. Some, like the first, stole all sensation after a moment...some were deeper, but all were followed by the same question.

"Who?"

And again.

"Who?"

And again -

"Who!"

Sango flayed his flesh open with her short blade, poured powders and burning fluids into the wounds. Finally she pushed him back, bared his heaving abdomen and sliced deep into pink tissues with raw steel. She found the liver, wet and dark and heavy, and from the rich organ she cut a corner of visceral flesh, and then another, peeling away his insides, throwing the bits one at a time away from his body so that the wet slap of his own organ was audible to him.

Hours had passed. Only youkai stamina kept Tatsuya conscious, alive, still capable of speech, and Sango took a break for water, washed her hands and arms and ate while Kagome stood over the prisoner, threatening by her closeness and her flickering power and the scent of her rage.

When she returned, she stared grimly at the work she had done, and remembering her words set to work again. Sheets and fibers of muscle she peeled from beneath his skin; she stretched tendons to the breaking point, shattered bones and finally, finally began to eke out words from beneath his screams.

"Should I take your hands from you, Dragon? Your legs? The organs that sustain you? Tell me the name of the one who sent you! Tell me what you were after, when you went after Rin!"

"We..."

She stopped, stood very still, listening to the ragged whisper of his voice and then reached into soft, exposed organs with the tip of her knife when he hesitated again.

"We! We...took the girl – because she was...human. Unprotected. Vulnerable. Because he chose her. The Inu! Sesshomaru..."

He drew in a deep, sucking breath that whined with agony.

"We took the girl...because of him. To – draw him out. To make him the...vulnerable one – ah!"

The sharp point of her blade cut another sliver of flesh.

"A name, Dragon. You still are not giving me a name."

"We – we worked alone -"

"A lie! The name, Dragon!"

Sango stood still, the blade poised in her hand. No further words were forthcoming, only panting, the scent of death in his breath now, odor of entrails, odor of poison, odor of blood.

She turned to look at Kagome then, and saw what she had not expected but should have – darkness, eagerness, the reaching Inu in the hum of crimson that tinted her gold eyes. Her gaze was directed at the flood of blood that had spilled from the Dragon in the course of Sango doing her work; her nostrils were flared, gathering rich and terrible scents, her pupils dilated with a desire that had never existed in Kagome-the-woman, but which Sango was familiar with all the same.

Desire for pain. Desire to destroy.

"Kagome, I need your help, please. Burn him a little; just a little. Set his blood on fire with pain."

A smile spread across Kagome's face that Sango knew Sesshomaru would regret having missed, and she stepped forward with light playing around her fingertips, golden and violet both. It ran outward like water and reached around Tatsuya's flesh like a caress – but Sango knew it wasn't.

The screams told her that, and the name in them, finally shaken free by an agony no blade or poison could mimic even a little.

"Stop – stop – please – stop -"

And then:

"Kasuka! Kasuka, it was Kasuka -"

Satisfied, Sango motioned for Kagome to step back. Unwillingly, she did so, but the hungry smile on her face did not change.

"You're sure it's enough, Sango?"

"Yes. For now. I would have asked you earlier, but I was having too much fun."

She grinned to match Kagome, albeit missing sharper teeth in her smile; then she turned back to Tatsuya. The wound she had opened in his abdomen was already beginning to close; within the gash she could see organs and tissues realigning, resetting, renewing. The damage she had done to his liver, and to his left eye would take years to heal; the rest only hours or days...if he lived that long.

"Now, Dragon, you will tell me the specifics of the plan that this Kasuka made; you will tell me the names of those who are still living who take orders from her; you will tell me the numbers of her strength, and where they are hiding, and what they are waiting for."

Tatsuya spat blood in the direction of Sango's voice but she stepped back neatly, avoiding it. With the blade she had used to blind him, she reached out and pierced his wrists where they crossed over his head, running through the throbbing veins that ran there. With another blade, twin to the first, she sliced behind his ankles, and then deep into the thigh, seeking the femoral artery – she found it, spurting blood told her so, and then she sat back to watch the red flow out of him. Three times, she refreshed the deeper wounds. The right eye that remained whole and open, if blind, grew heavy-lidded. His expression grew dull, his features lax; he panted faintly now, the senses remaining to him shivering away from consciousness.

"What was your plan, Dragon?"

"I won't..."

"Your plan. Tell me. To take Rin from this place, and draw Sesshomaru out into the wilderness. To taunt him into the open, to make him vulnerable to your poison – you made it just for him. You made it strong, strong enough to kill a thousand others. You knew it would not work otherwise -"

"No – no – we didn't – we didn't make -"

"You didn't make the poison? Who did? Who brought it to you? Who said that it would work? Who did you trust?"

The questions came fast, one after another. Loss of blood was shutting down organs, shutting down his brain. Suddenly there was no reason for him to deny her, or if there was he could not remember it. Even the pain was fading; only her voice existed at the center of his world, drawing out answers in a choked and dreamy voice.

"Kasuka...the Dragonlord's daughter...her own blood. Her power...enough for anyone...even the Inu; enough to destroy. The Dragonlord's daughter – the Dragonlord's...daughter."

He smiled.

"She will kill you all -"

Sango gritted her teeth and restrained herself; Kagome did not. The puddle of blood on the floor smoked into purple flame and vanished, leaving an acrid smoke. The fire climbed Tatsuya's flesh, invested his blood, blackened his skin around the shine of Sango's blade.

Kagome spoke in a flat, frozen whisper. Her stare drank his agony; his screams poured into her thirsty ears. There was no argument within her; everything she was, miko and youkai, human heart and youkai spirit, was in agreement over the fate that should befall this treacherous foe. She did not argue with the darkness as it moved in her, she welcomed it; she reached for it, guiltless, guileless in her reasons and her motives to cause pain as she was guileless in everything else.

Blood smoke, blood flavors, blood scent, blood lust –

All of them were hers, and his screams so precious – they, too, belonged to her.

A flash of images moved across her mind, pushed forward by the Inu as it awoke and strove within her for mastery: Rin's fear, Sesshomaru's agony...Sesshomaru's death. The death of my mate, the death of my mate compels me -

Sango's voice interrupted her introspection.

"Careful, Kagome, you'll kill him -"

"Not yet."

The words snapped out across the end of Sango's admonition, a whisper that hinted at all of Kagome's unspoken desires.

"Not yet. I'll only make him suffer."

"Kagome -"

Kagome glared at Sango, but the woman did not shy away from her red-glazed vision. She was over being disturbed by the youkai in her friend; scowling, Kagome sighed, and then shrugged, forcefully.

"Fine. Fine – I'll let you continue."

The fire died. The parts of Tatsuya that remained untouched were not many, but where there was unwounded skin it stood out sharply. It seemed more pale now compared to the blackened flesh and burnt muscles that showed where Kagome's power had afflicted him. Those wounds did not begin to regenerate as the wounds that Sango had left on him had done.

"She's eager for your death, Dragon; for the revenge that was undone and delayed when Sesshomaru brought you back to life. If you are lucky, Sesshomaru will kill you himself, and not leave you for her; or did you want to suffer that burn for the rest of time?"

Tatsuya smiled vacantly; his voice spilled out like water from a broken vessel and painted the future with horrors.

"She will come for you...for all of you...she will destroy, as only she can, and when she is through..."

Laughter bubbled bloody from Tatsuya's throat.

"When she is through, even if she has no victory, the price...the price of victory against her...will be higher than you know...or want. The Inu is her enemy, and those who stand by him...Dragon mate, or human, or child, it does not...matter. This place...this place and no place...no safety from her...or her servants."

Kagome snarled in his direction, showing a mouthful of glittering fangs; Sango only shook her head, and reached for the knife – but the door slammed open behind her just then, revealing Sesshomaru and a dark shadow beside him unfamiliar to her.

Kagome's expression shifted quickly and she smiled in greeting; she knew who Sesshomaru's companion was.

"Kinawai; hello. Did Sesshomaru invite you to meet our guest?"

From his place beside Sesshomaru Kinawai stared in open surprise at the sight before him – the woman, crimson splashed, bloody to the elbows; Kagome herself, redder in motive than he remembered her – and behind them the Dragon, one of those who owed him oath and allegiance, his life hanging by a thin thread.

"Well, Sesshomaru, I see why you summoned me; shall we go somewhere more comfortable to discuss what this one and his companions -"
"Discuss?"

Sango backed away toward the corner, hearing the depth of fury in Sesshomaru's hiss.

"They took my daughter from me – my daughter, claimed before them all. They laid hands on Rin – on me – used poison in their attempt to subdue me...the last of my bloodline, the last of my House! Tell me, Kinawai, why I should not seek out every last one of them and slaughter them all!"

Odd, choking laughter came from Tatsuya, bleeding from a hundred wounds, bound still in Miroku's seals behind them. Sesshomaru turned to face him, a growl in his throat, but Kinawai stepped between them and tried to insert some calm into the situation.

"Sesshomaru, you cannot slaughter them all and taking your vengeance from this one will not solve the problem of his purpose. Call the Council. Let them see this filth; let it be decided by them what should be done."

A red-eyed expression of wrath met his eyes at that.

"Council! Council! Once before, I followed this advice; years ago, when the Dragon challenged my father, and he was slain – when he, too, was destroyed...he, unluckier than I in the mate he chose. All that was accomplished then was the confirmation of my own decision; hours of argument, pointless, hours of argument for which I have no patience now. Now, when barely a century has passed – these Dragons have short memories, Kinawai, and I intend to brand an image of destruction into their thoughts that will last forever!"

"Sesshomaru, you cannot act unilaterally on this! Your father was the one who brought the Council together; you cannot disregard it!"

For a moment, Sesshomaru stared down into the eyes of his captive Dragon; then he hit him once, sharply, so hard that Tatsuya's lower jaw broke and then tore, shattered away from his face. Blood and flesh spattered against the far wall; he watched it slide to the floor with a twist of smile that was cruel in its pleasure.

"Sesshomaru - !"

"Very well."

Kinawai paused.

"Very...well? You -"

"I will allow you to summon the Council. I will save my retribution until they have talked themselves out of words. But I warn you, Kinawai – this waiting will not ease my wrath. Too many times, I have been forced to save her – my girl. My daughter. This last was one too many, and this time – this time all those involved, all of them, will pay with their lives."

His eyes met Kinawai's with a sudden intensity.

"All of them, Kinawai – do you understand?"

For a moment Kinawai's eyes flashed open wide, and then settled back into an attempt at lazy diffidence. He had seen all at once and totally Sesshomaru's meaning; the reason for the intensity, the focus.

He believes this was Kasuka's doing.

The proof of this, the proof that was in Tatsuya's words, he did not yet know; nor did Sesshomaru. But the suspicion was obvious, and easy – for the Inu.

Sesshomaru will call her out, if she stands against him, and when he does he will break the Council! Too many long for the days when youkai were in power; Dragonlord Days, dreaming days. Too many want what she offers...but without her involved, or the ancient names she will dredge out of history to support her claim. And Sesshomaru...

His eyes cleared as his sight darkened.

Sesshomaru, strongest of us all -

"I understand, Sesshomaru."

Kinawai turned away, and tried not to think about what it would mean if his own mate was named as traitor to kin and Council, if the Challenge he feared were to take place, if the Council were broken – if there was war.

"I understand...all too well."

He turned away from Tatsuya without another word; as the head of the Council, he was the one who could summon them – the one to decide whether or not the cause was worthwhile. There would be grumbling; too much seemed to focus on Sesshomaru, these days...

But that was not his fault; Kinawai knew his friend, and that all he wanted was to be left alone with his new mate.

Whoever and whatever has begun this, he will end it.

Soon is not soon enough.

He heard Sesshomaru's voice behind him, thanking the woman for her work, offering her the basement springs to clean up in; help, from a taijiya...and Kagome, too? Yes. He had seen the blackened bits of Tatsuya's flesh even in the dimness, even through the red.

Kinawai remembered that once he had thought Kagome was a youkai with a human heart.

He thought that he had been wrong; always wrong.

That the human in her had been a mask, torn off piece by piece -

That for the first time, he was staring her truth in the face.

Red-eyed Inu, the mate of Sesshomaru, thirsty for vengeance...as he is.

He wondered what details had made this so; what had woken bloody hungers in the calm of her soul. He asked Sesshomaru, and received only an answer that shocked him into silence.

"They poisoned me; those Dragons. I died, and though I live again, she will not forgive them."

Kinawai shuddered, and began to write the summons' that were required.

A/N: Ah...hm. Yes. A year. Um...sorry? :cringes: I was bad...but look! Over here! A CHAPTER! Which I do hereby dedicate to Wiccan, for igniting memory and guilt spasms...and Kay, for not letting me slack out of them...ah...here's to not taking another year for the next chapter, ya?

Also: For those of you who like Sesshomaru/Kagome pairings, as well as smut, take a gander at Dokuga's Forum, where you will find a link to the Summer Smut Madness Tournament. Write smut, win prizes - full details in the forum posting!

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